This is one of those articles that just has you shaking your head in wonder. The writer, Sebastian Mallaby, writes that Bush has had all the luck in regards to the economy:
When it comes to economic policy, George W. Bush has all the luck. He’s like a drunk who wanders across a six-lane highway and somehow never quite gets smushed.
First Bush proposed enormous tax cuts to shore up his conservative credentials in the 2000 primaries. Then, after the first reckless cuts were enacted, along came the perfect after-the-fact justification: terrorism. Suddenly people were terrified about air traffic grinding to a standstill, consumers being too frightened to go shopping and buildings being uninsurable. The economic boost from the tax cuts seemed almost prescient.
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Yes, the trade deficit is at an all-time high, and last year — conveniently, after the election — the dollar fell enough to get people nervous. But this year, the trade deficit notwithstanding, the dollar has bounced back again. Meanwhile, long-term interest rates are actually lower now than they were one year ago. The stock market has been amiably docile.
What gives? Certainly not something that Bush could have predicted. Foreigners have decided to shower the United States with savings, so the pain from his guns — and prescription drugs — and butter policy has been magically anesthetized. The more Bush pushed up the government’s borrowing, the more foreigners eagerly opened their wallets. Hence no shortage of capital, no higher long-term interest rates and no falling dollar.
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So thanks to Asian central bankers, cash-rich oil states and testy European voters, Bush has escaped the consequences of his profligacy — and now, because the economy is growing, the budget deficit is coming down. In the long term, to be sure, Bush has put the federal government on an unsustainable financial glide path, and one day the foreigners will refuse to keep us airborne. But there’s no justice in politics. The comedown may not happen on Bush’s presidential watch.
This guy is crying in his beer because the market should have punished Bush. Why you ask? Well, just cause. It can’t be that he was right could it? No, never. He couldn’t be managing our economy so well that those foreign devils decided investing in our country is a good bet, could it? Man these lefties crack me up sometimes. Well, all of the time actually.
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